


Freelance

by vega_voices



Series: Come Rain, Come Shine [54]
Category: Murphy Brown (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Journalism, family business, mothers and sons, the war in afghanistan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-22 09:26:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17057162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vega_voices/pseuds/vega_voices
Summary: Silence reigned on his voicemail. His agent hadn’t dropped him, thank god, citing Avery’s dedication to his moral compass. Eventually people would come around. But right now, they were lying low. Unless of course he wanted to host a new year’s ball drop with Gilbert Gottfried.





	Freelance

**Title:** Freelance  
**Author:** vegawriters  
**Fandom:** Murphy Brown  
**Series:** Come Rain, Come Shine  
**Pairing:** Murphy Brown/Peter Hunt; Avery Brown/Lauren  
**Rating:** Gen  
**Timeframe:** _Between The Wheels on the Dog ..._ and _AWOL_ (Season 11)  
**A/N:** What happens in those six weeks after Avery stuck to his guns?  
**Disclaimer:** Diane and Warner Bros own everything. I just sit here and play and thank the Gods for the characters she’s given me.

**Summary:** _Silence reigned on his voicemail. His agent hadn’t dropped him, thank god, citing Avery’s dedication to his moral compass. Eventually people would come around. But right now, they were lying low. Unless of course he wanted to host a new year’s ball drop with Gilbert Gottfried._

**Day 1**  
Avery had never been so glad to come home to a quiet house. Well, quiet save for the gentle squeaking of wheels as Benny trundled up to him.

God. What was he going to do?

He sank to the stairs and let Benny come up for a head nuzzle. The poor thing probably needed a walk, and the reality of responsibility forced him up again. He grabbed the leash and helped the dog down the front stairs.

Thankfully, the neighborhood was as quiet as the house. As a kid, he’d just seen this Georgetown neighborhood as just another one in the area. He hadn’t understood the wealth and influence crowded into these streets. Sean’s mom was just Sean’s mom. Katie’s dad was just Katie’s dad. It was his world, his life. Even understanding that Jake was off fighting for a better life for people who didn’t live in these neighborhoods, and understanding that Peter was off reporting on it, it had just been how things were. His first visit with Jake made him question everything. College ripped him apart. Scrolling tumblr while sitting in his classes at Columbia, he started to understand the concepts of privilege, especially his.

Wealthy, white, straight-appearing, CISgendered. His mother’s found family was his own. Aunts and Uncles were terms with no biology attached and he was raised as much by Frank and Corky as Peter and his mother. It had been in his 300 level sociology class that it really hit him that the only reason he wasn’t the next Paul Ryan had been the family politics and the expectation that with wealth and privilege came responsibility to make damn sure everyone else’s voices were heard. It was easy to say he’d gone into journalism because it was the only thing he’d ever known, but in truth, he entered the family business because someone had to tell the stories and it was a calling to do so.

One of the downsides of Benny’s wheels was that he had no control as to where he pooped. Avery stopped and spent two minutes making sure the mess was cleaned off of The Lee’s driveway.

Talk about a reminder of privilege.

He dropped the little green baggie into the Lee’s trashcan and kept walking.

His last name was a blessing and a curse. Professors expected him to know more, to work harder, to have better contacts. Other students had waffled between wanting to get close and hope that legacy would rub off and hating that if he had a question, he could just call him mommy. His mother’s reports were case studies. Her and Frank’s books were part of the course materials. But MSNBC was more than happy to extend the internship to him, as was CNN. Time and Newsweek and damn if the Washington Post wasn’t interested too. To have the next generation of Brown on the docket was something they all salivated over. His agent was a referral from his mother’s.

“Accept it,” Peter had told him over a meltdown one summer night. “Your mother’s name gets you in the door. You can whine, or you can take the responsibility and do something with it.”

So he did something with it. He spent time with Andrea Mitchell and Chris Hayes. He forged connections at the Post. He realized he was a terrible writer and worked to fix that. He came to understand just how much, how truly much, he loved talking to people. His mother’s son.

But the name followed and when Wolf called, it felt like a weight had been lifted. He could talk to people and do it away from his mother’s shadow. He could forge his own path. The news directors listened to him and took his advice and the writing on the wall was when that horrific promo spot had been released, but he thought he was in the clear.

No. He was a shill. They were just greasing him up so they could shove him into their holes.

So he’d done the only logical thing, obviously: he’d trashed his network, told the viewers to go watch something else, and stormed off in a tantrum of unprofessional behavior. He didn’t have to go off. He could have just read his comments and not theirs. He could have not been a complete idiot.

Something else that ran in the family, maybe?

Benny whimpered and Avery glanced down, realizing they’d gone further than he expected and it seemed like the little dog was tired. They weren’t far from a coffee shop and even though it was chilly, Avery walked over and leashed Benny to a bench and ran in for coffee. The shop had dog treats and he grabbed two. Outside, he sat on the bench and fed Benny the treats and sipped his coffee and finally risked a glance at his twitter feed.

Yeah, that was a mistake.

He fully expected his mother to be crowing, but a peek at her account only had a pinned tweet (when had she learned how to do that?) that she’d written last night. _Proud._

Thanks, Mom.

The chill was getting to him and he knew it had to be getting to Benny, so he gathered his leash and headed back toward Cambridge Place and the townhouse where his dreams had been formed. He bundled the little dog into one of the sweaters his mother had bought for him (not a dog lover his ass) and carried him up to his bedroom where they fell asleep for the rest of the afternoon.

**Day 8**

“You’re a damn hero in a lot of circles, you know.”

They were stretched out on Lauren’s bed. She wore his shirt and a pair of ratted leggings and he just kept the sheet over his naked lower half. The afternoon waned as she flipped idly through an issue of Smithsonian Magazine and he scrolled twitter, which was becoming an addiction he didn’t want to admit to. Her hair was still a mess from their recent wrestling match and Avery was trying not to focus too much on the tendrils that escaped her ponytail. They hadn’t seen each other since the morning after Jim’s award ceremony - his schedule, her workload - and he knew a lot of it was her concern about being seen with a Wolf Guy.

_You’re great, Avery,_ she’d said over waffles and fries, and _I really like you and your mom is hilarious. But … I’m sorry. You work for Wolf. That’s scary to me._

Well, she’d been right to be scared, apparently.

“Am I a hero to you?”

She tossed him a glance and closed the magazine. “Avery, you know where the clit is and how to touch it without ruining everything. So, yes, you’re a hero.” He cracked up. She smirked at him and leaned over, pressing her forehead into his arm. “Seriously,” her big eyes met his. “I’m amazed you haven’t had calls from everywhere. You did what everyone has been begging journalists to do.”

“And right now, I’m too much of a risk. What if MSNBC has a policy I don’t like? What if the Post takes me back but I’m sent to cover a story that sets me off? This isn’t …” he snorted. “This isn’t my mom’s time and even my mom never did what I did. She pissed people off. She got suspended a few times.” He took a breath. “There was one interview she was told to do. She didn’t want to do it, but the network forced her hand. It was this fluff piece and the same night as the interview, there was this military action and she knew the right thing was to cut to the network coverage. But the network wanted the ratings for this interview with this country singer. So she looked into the camera and told people to switch the station. But she went on with the interview. She did her job. And it’s one of the highest rated interviews of her career and it’s the one that she’s never forgiven herself for.”

“She did her job though.”

Avery ran his hand through his hair. “Yeah.”

“And you did yours. In time, people will see that.”

“What do I do until then?”

Lauren smirked up at him. “Well, you can rent yourself out for a few hundred bucks a night.”

Avery laughed and grabbed her, pushing the magazine off the pillow and pressing himself between her thighs. “You paying?”

“Unlike those of us with college funds, I’ve got student loans. Sorry, bub. But, I won’t complain if that’s where you need to take yourself. I can share.”

He tickled her. “Thank you so much for your progressive thinking.”

“Shut up.”

**Day 22**

Silence reigned on his voicemail. His agent hadn’t dropped him, thank god, citing Avery’s dedication to his moral compass. Eventually people would come around. But right now, they were lying low. Unless of course he wanted to host a new year’s ball drop with Gilbert Gottfried.

No. He didn’t.

He went out with Lauren when she had time. Played video games with his friends when they had time. He wrote and did research that wouldn’t go anywhere because it wasn’t like there was anyone who wanted to take his work right now. The little voice in the back of his head told him this was the perfect time to attack the story he’d been developing on his own time, but he didn’t have the energy to try and dive into the world of sexual harassment in journalism. From his mother’s experiences to what he’d witnessed and stood silently by for at Wolf, he was disgusted at humanity.

That would be a coup. The dude from Wolf revealing how terrible things were over there for women. Yep. Everyone would believe him now.

Jesus Christ.

Three weeks in he was starting to see just how much he’d screwed himself over.

He came back in from a walk with Benny to see a familiar duffel bag on the foyer floor and just like it had his entire life growing up, Avery’s heart skipped a beat and his stomach turned over. Peter was home? Peter was home? Peter was home?

And his dad was in fact in the kitchen. Fresh out of a shower, a cup of coffee in his hand, he was clearly waiting for this father-son teachable moment. So he did the logical thing, he introduced Peter to the newest member of the family.

“Your mother,” Peter said, laughing. Benny was pawing at his leg, his eyes wide, ready to meet the new human. “She doesn’t do anything halfway. And I’ll bet this little beast is her best friend.”

“Don’t tell her that.” Avery poured himself some coffee and walked back into the living room. If he was about to get lectured by his father, he was going to be comfortable while he did it.

“So,” Peter said, not wasting time. It was a tactic developed after a lifetime of never knowing how long he’d be home. “What happened? Really?”

Avery took a breath. “I took the time slot with the condition that I wouldn’t have to read one of those blasted fake news editorials.”

“And they gave it to you anyway.”

“Yeah.” Avery rubbed his neck. “I was so pissed and I just went off.”

“I saw.”

“The whole world saw.”

Peter chuckled. “Yeah. And is still seeing. The clip has millions of views now.”

Avery groaned. “I’m never getting a job in this business again. All I ever wanted to do was be a reporter and here I am … not being a reporter.”

“You’ve got stories under your skin. Work on them.”

“And do what with them?”

“Don’t sit there and whine. You’ve got stuff to do. Start acting like it.” Avery stared at him. Peter stared back. “You worked for the Post, you freelanced with Time. You’re a big boy. What is it you said to your mom after the White House incident? That you didn’t want to grab onto her apron strings? Well, stop coasting on your last name and do something.”

Avery scrubbed his hand through his hair and voiced the question he wasn’t sure he was ready to ask. “What if this isn’t what I’m meant to do?”

“Well,” Peter said, “then you have some free time to figure it out.”

Avery blinked, but he wasn’t surprised at the answer. If there was any constant in the Hunt/Brown household, it was that there wasn’t coddling to whining. There was an expectation of self-reflection and of acting on that self-reflection. Shit or get off the pot, really. The world moved too fast for hemming and hawing. And Peter was right, he knew. He could bumble around and figure himself out and still work on these stories that had been part of his portfolio. He could get his name out there. Hell, he lived with two of the most respected journalists in the history of the profession. He could ask them questions and figure things out. He could also start the novel everyone was supposed to write at some point in their lifetime.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “I know.”

Peter took another sip of his coffee as the door opened. “We’ll get back to this over dinner,” he winked as he set his coffee down.

Avery glanced over to the foyer and watched the moment play out like it had so often through his childhood. His mother put her bag down on the chair, Peter stood up and walked over, and everything around them vanished as they kissed hello.

Someday, he wanted what they had.

“When did you get in?”

“I’ve had enough time to shower,” Peter teased.

Avery looked down at Benny and shook his head. “Have fun, guys!” He called as his parents moved up the stairs. Please let him be this in love when he was in his late 60s. The door shut and Avery hopped up, grabbed the dog and, as he had so often as a kid, dashed into the basement to watch TV. The last thing he needed to hear was his mother’s gasp or his father’s laugh. Some things just didn’t need to be shared.

**Day 45**

Avery was losing his mind. He’d trained the dog to do bell ringing tricks. He was jogging 6 miles a day. He was crashing his mother’s story meetings and being rejected by her boss and he’d insulted Miguel in ways he’d always sworn he wouldn’t once he recognized his privilege. Nothing was moving on his stories that he’d had for a while. Nothing worked. Nothing got him flowing.

Maybe this wasn’t what he was supposed to do with his life.

And then, his mother’s source went dark.

He’d grown up in this world. He understood the importance of foreign correspondents. He knew how hard it was for his father to do his job now. There had been a time in his youth when Peter was around for more than a few days at a time. Now, he was all but classified as an expat because without his time out on the road, there wasn’t anyone to develop sources and process stories.

Coming in the door after the conversation at Phil’s about what it “used to be like,” Avery moved into the library, turned on his laptop, and started his search. Within hours he had everything he needed, including the plane ticket to Kandahar. His trust fund apparently was good for more than paying his cell phone bill while he was unemployed. Now the legacy he’d never felt like he earned was about to finance his freelance career. This made sense. This he could do. He had the instincts, he liked talking to people, he could do this. He had to do this. The news, Peter’s voice intonned in his head, tends to be where the mortar rounds are landing. There were plenty of journalists here to cover Trump and his buddies and the people who voted for him. The New York Times had it covered. No. This was how he fixed it.

_There’s a story I’m going to go cover,_ he texted Lauren. _I’m sorry I’m doing this over text, I know it doesn’t look good. I’m going to Afghanistan. I’ll call, I promise._

_You’re right._ She texted back. _It looks like you’re running. But I want to understand. Good luck. You’d better call. If you don’t, don’t bother when you get back._

Now to get out the door before his mother could argue. Before he could break her heart. Before he did what Jake and Peter did on the regular. What Jerry had done so often. She’d never voiced it to him, never told him, but Avery wasn’t a dumb kid. He knew how much it hurt her that the men in her life always seemed to leave. Always seemed to be running away. He knew that under her tough as nails, could smell fear exterior, she just wanted someone to tell her she was enough for them. He knew it was one reason she’d treasured Eldin so much - he never once gave up on her. Not once. His mother, the queen of independence, would never tell him not to go. She would tell him to fly. And then, he knew, she’d sit there and wonder what she did to push him away.

“Avery?”

Crap.

“I can come back if you’re doing something private.”

He laughed and let her in. He watched her realize what he was doing. He kissed her and pet the dog and promised he’d call. Of course he’d call. But he had to do this. He had to feel like a journalist again. And maybe there was some stupid part of him that felt like by doing this, he was helping to save his profession. He could bring some glory and importance back to a world that saw them all as wilting flowers and not professionals that risked themselves every day for a truth that no one ever wanted - until it was too late. Self reflection but acting upon it rather than dwelling - it was the Brown way. He’d been dwelling for far too long.

So he did what he needed to do. What she’d done at the age of twenty-two when she packed her bags and headed to Vietnam. What she’d done when she bounced around the bureaus in Europe and Asia and Africa. What Peter had done as he took off over and over for the Balkans and the Middle East.

“Avery!”

He turned to see his mother moving stiffly down the stairs. She had something in her hand and held it out as she came within arm’s length. It was a leather bound notebook, with straps that looped around and tied around two pens.

“Mom …”

“My first overseas job was as a freelancer. And a mentor from college - not Professor Talbot,” they both chuckled, “gave me my first notebook like this. Trust me. You can have all the recording equipment in the world …” her voice caught. “Be careful. Please. Duck when you hear whistling and listen to everything around you and always trust your gut. If it feels wrong, don’t do it.”

“Noted.” He tucked the notebook into his jacket, wondering how long she’d had it, how long she’d waited for this moment. “Any other advice?”

“Follow the local advice. Don’t throw your weight around. You aren’t there to report a story, you’re there to learn it. The reporting comes later.”

He nodded. “Thanks, Mom.”

“And call me every day.”

“I will.”

His phone buzzed. His ride was here. He kissed her and stepped outside.

He offered the townhouse one last glance, staring at the light in his bedroom window where he knew his mother had gone back to sit, and climbed into the waiting Lyft. He did what he’d been trained to do, he chatted with the driver - yes, he was the guy who went nuts on the Wolf network and yes, thank you for your support. Hopefully he’d be back in the game soon. He scanned his ticket, let security rifle through his equipment, and boarded the plane for the first leg of the trip to Afghanistan.

Avery followed the story, the scent of the source. He did his job, a job that was in his very DNA, a job his parents had risked their lives for more than once. A job that had punched him in the face and taken part of his soul. He did his job. Because there was a situation that was impacting people and they weren’t being told about it because it wasn’t a cool topic to trend on twitter. Because even Rachel Maddow could only talk so long about wartime politics. Because even his mother chasing after the Pentagon mouthpiece wasn’t enough to hold people’s attention. Avery settled in for the flight to London and opened his tablet. There was more work to do.

“Hey,” the guy next to him caught his attention. Avery pulled out his earbuds. “Aren’t you Avery Brown? The reporter from Wolf?”

He stared at the man, wishing he had his mother’s lifetime of experience that led to her ability to read someone’s reactions in a heartbeat. So he nodded and went for honesty. “Yeah. I was.”

“That took guts, man. I didn’t realize … well. It took guts for you do to that. What are you doing now?”

Avery looked back at the notes on his tablet. “Freelancing,” he said, feeling a swell of pride. “I’m heading to Afghanistan.”

“Why there?”

“War isn’t over,” Avery responded.

“It isn’t? Didn’t we pull out?”

“No.”

The man blinked. “I … I didn’t … wow. How long we been there?”

“Seventeen years,” Avery said. “There are kids right now who don’t know what it means for us to not be at war.”

“Wow.” The guy shook his head and then held out his hand. “I’m Mark Jacobs. Nice to meet you. Good luck over there. I’ll let you work.”

“Thanks,” Avery said. “And thanks for the support.”

He put his earbuds in, turning back to the podcast he’d found about the war. It was a good first start for his research and he opened the notebook his mother had given him. Inside was a note she’d clearly written ages ago. She’d been waiting for this moment.

_Avery,_

_I knew this day would come. When you told me you wanted to go into the family business, I was actually glad to know you would most likely not be sent overseas like the rest of us were. It’s one thing for me and your dad to duck mortar rounds it’s another for our son to do it. All we want is to protect you._

_But you are my son and you’ll do your own thing and so here you are, going … somewhere. Afghanistan, probably. We all end up there eventually._

_Keep your head down and your eyes alert. Don’t go on blind faith. Listen to your sources. Find a good bar and get to know the locals. Trust your instincts. And don’t be afraid to fall in love either. Everything happens in a moment, and they are the moments you never, ever forget._

_When you get home, we’ll talk about my first time._

_I love you. Be safe. Come home to me._  
_-Mom_

Avery ran his fingers over the familiar handwriting, took a breath, and turned the page. He had notes to take.


End file.
